The present invention relates to a system for cooling the components of a post-mix beverage in a beverage dispenser. More specifically, the present invention relates to the provision of a heat sink assembly interconnecting a compartment of the beverage dispenser containing the carbonator and a compartment of the beverage dispenser containing the concentrate containers to beneficially transfer heat between the respective compartments.
In post-mix beverage dispensers which mix a diluent such as carbonated water and a beverage concentrate it is necessary that the water is sufficiently cooled to provide a drink of a proper temperature. The colder the water the better capacity it has for absorbing CO.sub.2 gas to form carbonated water. Furthermore, since the amount of carbonated water in the final drink is several times the amount of beverage concentrate, the temperature of the carbonated water essentially determines the temperature of the final beverage of drink.
When cooling the carbonated water a natural limit is set which is determined by the freezing point of the carbonated water. In order to increase the cooling capacity when storing the carbonated water in a carbonator tank, a part of it will be stored as ice in the form of an ice bank around the perimeter of the tank. The thickness of the resulting ice bank serves as a criteria for the evaluation of the cooling capacity and the temperature of the carbonated water within the tank. As known the carbonated water is preferably cooled by the provision of cooling coils surrounding the carbonator tank. Systems of this type have a very high cooling efficiency.
It is desirable to also cool the beverage concentrates in storage containers therefor within the beverage dispenser prior to mixing of those beverage concentrates with carbonated water. One reason for cooling the beverage concentrate is to increase the shelf-life of the beverage concentrate and another reason is to ensure a proper serving temperature of the final post-mix drink mixture.
One conventional approach to cooling both the carbonated water and the beverage concentrate is to individually regulate and cool the respective components through separate means. This is generally done because the temperature and cooling requirements for the two beverage components are different from each other. For example, the temperature of the carbonated water is ideally as close as possible to the freezing point of the water. The beverage concentrate on the other hand should have a temperature which is low enough so that when mixed with the carbonated water near its freezing point the resulting temperature of the mixture is at the desired drink temperature. Typically the systems for individually regulating and cooling the carbonated water and beverage concentrate are complicated and expensive to manufacture.